The Year-god's Daughter: A Saga of Ancient Greece (The Child of the Erinyes Book 1)

by Rebecca Lochlann

  Aridela drifted, pillowed in clouds.

  “Thank you, Mother,” she said. “I’m ready.” She lost all feeling as she gazed into the brilliant blue eyes above hers. “Blue” couldn’t describe such pure, alive color. Aridela had never seen any shade so fluidly, darkly vivid, not lapis lazuli, not even the sea or a twilight sky. They shifted from blue to silver to lavender.

  A curtain fell around them. She lifted her hand and felt thick, soft hair. Her fingertips moved to the Lady’s almost manlike brow.

  The unfathomable mystery of the Goddess removed any fear of death.

  Then she was given the most exquisite gift. A kiss, pressed against her forehead.

  A woman’s shriek tore her from hard won peace. Shouts echoed through her skull. She felt her body ripped from the Goddess, away from serenity and love, into scalding heat and glaring light.

  “Princess Aridela!”

  “Who are you? What have you done? Guards—”

  “So much blood….”

  This clash of voices thrust her into unendurable pain. She cried out.

  “Carry her to her chamber. Be careful.”

  “We can’t. There’s too much bleeding.”

  “The queen will want to deal with this one. Hold him.”

  Aridela floated through her eyes into the air. She saw herself lying on the flagstones in the courtyard; an unfamiliar young man, restrained by palace servants, stood nearby. A guard hovered, spear ready, and another hurried up, drawing his sword.

  She jumped and turned as a pair of hands rested on her shoulders. A woman, gowned in flowing white, her brow decorated with a silver diadem and bracelets around her arms, moved to Aridela’s side, keeping hold of her shoulders as she watched the tableau.

  Something disturbed the crowd. They parted to make way for a lithe young woman with luminous brown eyes and dark red hair, the mark of foreign blood in her ancestry. A blue crescent moon was tattooed upon her forehead.

  It was Themiste, seer of Kaphtor. Oracle and visionary. Keeper of the Prophecies. Her titles were Most Holy Minos— Moon-being. The moon incarnate. She was but fifteen when chosen to don the mask of the bull, seventeen when Aridela was born.

  She knelt and cradled Aridela’s head on her lap.

  Aridela gazed upon her own discarded body. She wanted to tell Themiste something. The oracle must understand.

  “Yes,” said the handmaiden, as though she heard Aridela’s thoughts. “Many times have you watched children at play, and wished to join them.”

  “But we’re never allowed. Iphiboë and I have obligations,” Aridela said.

  “More than that.”

  Aridela looked into her companion’s face. “You know about the dreams, Lady?”

  “You see much suffering.”

  Aridela nodded.

  “And the end of everything you have loved.”

  Tears stung Aridela’s eyes. “Men throw the statue of Velchanos into the sea. Our cities are burned.”

  The handmaiden gave Aridela a reassuring hug. “But not all your dreams frighten you.”

  “I dance with a bull. I don’t get gored. Everyone cheers. I don’t do it to get attention. It’s important. I have to leap the bull. Athene wants me to.”

  “This bull dance changes the course of the world.”

  “They don’t understand.” She looked wistfully at Themiste.

  “Go,” the woman said, and kissed her cheek.

  The next instant, she was staring up at Themiste’s tear-stained face; the throb of the wound made her gasp. People crowded so close she couldn’t see the sky beyond them, only a wall of eyes and mouths.

  “Athene wanted me to leap the bull.” Her eyelids felt as heavy as stones. “She promised I would succeed.”

  Themiste was clearly shocked, but she retained enough presence to snap her neck straight and order, “Get back,” in her most commanding voice. Someone stepped between Themiste and the hovering crowd and forced them to move away. Aridela saw a swing of loose white hair at the edge of her vision. It must be her friend, Selene.

  Her strength ebbed. It was difficult to speak. “She promised.”

  Themiste stroked Aridela’s face. Tears caught on her lashes and overflowed. Aridela felt them, drops like the tiniest sprinkles of rain falling on her cheeks.

  A wall of darkness flowed higher, higher, at the edge of her vision. She wanted to close her eyes and let it carry her away.

  Only one question remained. Aridela forced her eyes open. She grabbed Themiste’s arm. “Did she want the bull to kill me? Is that what it means?”

  She waited. She must have an answer. Themiste had never lied to her. She wouldn’t lie now.

  Hands pried her away from the oracle. Themiste sobbed.

  Aridela tried to hold onto Themiste’s wrist, but not a shred of strength remained. “Does she want me to die?”

  The question echoed as the darkness extinguished the sun.

  Aridela saw nothing now but the all-knowing eyes of Athene, turned toward her; she heard nothing but faint intermittent thunder and her own voice, asking…

  Does she want me to die?

  Chapter Four: Moon of Field Poppies

  Menoetius paced from one corner of his cell to the other. Rats scrabbled in the damp, odorous corners. He was exhausted and cold, and had lost track of the passage of time.

  It made no sense. He’d shouted for help as he’d raced up the shrine steps, the limp girl in his arms. If not for him, the Cretan princess would have bled to death. No one would have found her in time.

  Those who condemned him were probably trying to save themselves. After all, someone— perhaps many someones— had kept such a poor watch over the child that she’d managed to leave her bed and stumble alone, unchecked, around the palace precincts.

  Something thumped against the heavy oak door. Menoetius stared through the murk as it opened, the lower edge scraping against earth. Light crept in from two small lamps.

  One man held a wooden yoke balanced across his shoulders; lamps dangled from both ends. The other gripped a sword. Between them stood a familiar figure, sparse hair gleaming white, his morose, lined face revealing nothing. It was his slave.

  “Alexiare.” Menoetius drew in a relieved breath. What had the old man offered in bribes to arrange this? “Am I being released?”

  Both the stoop-shouldered slave and the man with the lamps entered. The one hung his lamps on hooks in the ceiling, throwing a brief curious glance toward the prisoner as he left. The scowling guard closed the door, leaving Menoetius and his slave alone.

  “No, my lord.” Alexiare’s leathery face remained impossible to read even with the addition of light. “In fact, if I may be blunt, you are in true danger of being put to death.”

  Menoetius swallowed a sharp stab of fear. He hadn’t considered that possibility. “How long have I been here?”

  “Two days.” Alexiare sighed. “Two days of terror, while I feared they’d already killed you.”

  Long before Menoetius was born, a nobleman struck Alexiare in the throat with the butt of his dagger after catching the slave flirting with his wife. The old man’s voice never recovered. Distinctively hoarse, cracked like the grate of sandal soles upon dusty dry gravel, it worsened with every passing year.

  Two days. Had he said two days?

  “They won’t kill me.” Menoetius resumed pacing. Energy poured like a bonfire through his muscles and could only be subjugated through movement. “I saved her.”

  “It’s the queen who must be convinced.”

  “How is the girl? Is she alive?”

  One of Alexiare’s wiry grey brows lifted, but he didn’t pretend not to know whom Menoetius meant. “She lives. That, I believe, is the only reason you still do.”

  Menoetius stared at the wall. “If I die, who will protect her?”

  Alexiare was clearly puzzled. “Her mother and every other person on this island. Why would you have anything to do with it?”

  “It was no accid
ent.” Menoetius turned the force of his passion toward the slave, demanding, “What made us sail to Crete now? What guided me to Athene’s shrine at the perfect moment to save the life of the princess? You may think it coincidence. I don’t.” He rubbed his arms, for his skin felt as though it might shriek from his bones and shatter against the cell walls like fired clay. Though most in his position would suffer anxiety, even terror, at being imprisoned in the queen of Crete’s cold underground oubliette, accused of foul play against her royal daughter, a strange euphoria consumed his blood.

  Alexiare cleared his throat, something his injury required him to do whenever he spoke. “Your nature is spiritual, my lord, unlike your brother’s. Never were two boys fathered from the same seed so different, eh? But you know this can be easily remedied. We’ll tell the queen who you are. She’ll release you, I’ve no doubt, and weigh you down with gifts to take back to your father.”

  “No.”

  “What?” Bewilderment deepened the lines on Alexiare’s forehead and between his brows.

  Menoetius fought an instinctive recoil at the sinister aspect created by the uncertain light playing over his slave’s face. Though Alexiare was Ephesian by birth, he’d lived at the citadel of Mycenae in the service of King Idómeneus for more years than Menoetius had drawn breath. Before that, his home was Crete, which made him the perfect companion for this journey. The king trusted the old man. There was no one else, at the moment, Menoetius could rely on, and he knew it.

  Nevertheless, an unproven inner conviction warned that Alexiare kept murky ambitions, and if they were harmless, why keep them secret? “We won’t tell the queen who I am,” he said, trying to sound confident.

  “But isn’t that the surest way to regain your freedom?”

  “It will raise suspicion. The king would never forgive me for that, not with his present plans.”

  “Why, we’ll fashion a tale, my lord. We’ll say your father wanted you to experience other societies as a commoner, to increase your understanding of them. Queen Helice would appreciate that.”

  “I am but one of his countless bastards. I have no claim to his crown and never will. What would be the purpose of such understanding? Helice sees through the lies of men. It’s her gift, and has made her powerful beyond any but the pharaohs of Egypt. I don’t want her to suspect he sent me here, or that I have any connection to him.”

  Alexiare folded his arms across his chest and inclined his head. “You’re wise beyond your youthful years, my lord. I’m ever in amazement. But you know you aren’t merely ‘one of his countless bastards.’ He loves you beyond any but his trueborn children. It would be a mistake to assume the queen of Kaphtor, shrewd as she is, hasn’t been made aware of this through the years. Please, my lord. I advise you to tell the truth. After all, if you refuse to tell her your name, you must make one up. Is that not, in itself, a lie?”

  Menoetius wasn’t nearly as convinced as Alexiare about this “love” the king bore for him, but there was no time to argue, for the door creaked as someone pulled it open. “The lie of a name which makes me nobody will be easy to carry off. Do what I tell you,” he said.

  Two armed guards entered; a third remained in the doorway. The two who approached Menoetius bound his wrists with hemp shackles and shoved him through the door. Alexiare followed as the guards prodded Menoetius up the steps.

  He squinted as they left the underground and entered the courtyard. Though the sun lay heavy and low in the west, it was still blinding to someone locked in a lightless cell for two days. The guards motioned him between two pillars and along a short corridor where double-headed axes, thrusting between inlaid bull’s horns, decorated the walls at shoulder height.

  The guards led him to a chamber more luxurious than any king’s hall on the mainland, including his father’s. Myrrh-scented smoke drifted, camouflaging the underlying odor of animals. Fabulous patterns painted in a myriad of colors covered the walls; fat crimson pillars supported a high ceiling. Exotic potted plants lined the walls, along with benches, servants waving feathered fans, and onlookers adorned in sheer linen and gemstones. Their sandals rang against beautiful tile work.

  There she sat on her mighty throne.

  Queen Helice wasn’t a complete stranger. If memory served, she’d last visited his father’s citadel about seven years ago. Long before that, before any mortal now living, her ancestors sent diplomatic emissaries and their two societies began to intermingle; nowadays, Mycenaean artisans created jewels, bronze, pottery and weaving that rivaled the crafts made by their teachers on Crete.

  The task charged to him by his father returned with scathing clarity as he stared at the queen. Go there, Idómeneus ordered. Mingle with the Cretans. Discover their weaknesses, their flaws. How can I overpower them? I want that island and there has to be a way.

  This degenerated into another argument as Menoetius demanded to know how his father could consider murdering the queen he treated as a friend, enraging a fearsome goddess, and enslaving a culture more accomplished than his own.

  “Do not question my actions.” Idómeneus’s eyes narrowed dangerously at his bastard son’s insult. “You will obey me. Queen Helice’s influence has touched every known land. She grows ever richer on trade while we cower here among the rocks. She mocks us with her ships, her armies, and palaces. Every day I allow it to continue weakens me further in the eyes of those I rule. I, High King over the Kindred Kings, must be the one who conquers her. Crete will be mine.”

  Menoetius shut his mouth. He couldn’t sway the stubborn old man. This journey was a test; Menoetius would either please his father, or infuriate him, again. Who knew what would come of the latter?

  As he followed the guards into the judgment hall, respectfully lowering his gaze but still watching as best he could, he realized if he did survive, he would have nothing but bad news to offer Idómeneus.

  He discerned no hint of softness or mercy on her face. She gazed at him, perfectly still. Her cold shrewd eyes sent shivers into his belly. She would put him to death without hesitation or remorse if she believed he’d tried to harm her daughter; his relationship to the king wouldn’t matter. He’d ignited the chilling wrath of a mother.

  Sweat popped out on the nape of his neck. He fisted his hands to keep them still.

  Invasion of this land would be foolhardy. It would fail. Many would die.

  “The prisoner will speak,” Helice said.

  * * * *

  Everyone of rank, including the royal healer, gathered in the throne room to hear the interrogation of the prisoner.

  Themiste went along to Aridela’s bedchamber through one of the hidden passages. The child’s nurse snored on her pallet at the foot of the bed, but Themiste dismissed her with a glance. She’d laced the woman’s supper with a hint of poppy; even without assistance, the old woman always slept soundly.

  A subtle infusion of poppy had helped put Aridela into a deeper sleep as well. Themiste stepped to the side of the bed and turned the child onto her back. She lifted the dagger she’d brought, gritting her teeth, trying to shut all thought from her mind. Nevertheless, her arm remained rigid; she wept, choking as she struggled to keep silent.

  Did she want me to die? Is that what it means?

  Themiste relived that moment in the courtyard, and the next, which caused doubt to melt and resolve to crystallize.

  A blood-soaked Aridela tugged at Themiste’s necklace, pulling her face closer. With the last of her strength, she whispered, “Death cannot stop the thinara king. He will follow. He will slay me until time is worn out.”

  Why couldn’t she have died in the bullring? The Goddess would have made the choice. The bull would have completed the task. Themiste and everyone else could let the child go with pure, unburdened sorrow, and Themiste wouldn’t be the killing instrument.

  “Yes, my darling child,” Themiste whispered. “Your life must end for the good of us all.”

  Biting her lip, she raised the knife again, aiming for Aridel
a’s heart.

  Something touched her foot, startling her. It was Io, her black asp. She knelt, holding out her arm so it could twine around her forearm, and stroked its scales, which warmed against her skin. The asp stared fixedly at the bed, flicking its tongue, so Themiste rose and put it next to Aridela. Io coiled and reared, flaring its hood at Themiste with a menacing hiss.

  “You have loved me from birth, called me Mother,” Themiste said. “Now you threaten me?” Confounded, she laid the knife on the coverlet.

  The snake swayed, following the tilt of Themiste’s head. It didn’t strike, but kept its mouth open, fangs bared. Drying her cheeks, Themiste nodded and sighed. “You have my attention.” Slowly, cautiously, she picked up the agitated serpent and carried it back to her underground chamber, leaving the child’s sleep undisturbed.

  Making sure she was alone, Themiste gathered what she needed. She spoke the necessary prayers of protection, chewed the cara mushroom, and drank the serpent venom.

  The visionary tools took effect swiftly and intensely.

  Breathless, trembling, she lay on her bed, placing Io next to her. The shadows deepened. Her mouth and fingertips tingled.

  Themiste didn’t open her eyes, not when her serpent crawled onto her breast and changed, grew heavier, bigger, nor even when a male voice, dark and hoarse, like clouds filled with thunder and rain, spoke close to her ear.

  The child must live, to fulfill the tasks set before her.

  The concoctions threw a wall between Themiste’s lucid mind and the fantastic power of vision. She felt her heart racing, but it was far away, as though happening to someone else. “The prophecies say she heralds our destruction.” Her voice, too, barely penetrated the cloud of divination.

  It’s true. Your world will be carried to the edge of oblivion through her actions.

  “Then why did you stop me?”

  For at the end of oblivion lies hope, and only she can find it.

  Not even the horrifying vision Themiste had experienced on the night Aridela was born, and which had influenced her resolve to slay the child today, had been this palpable. His breath tickled her ear. His hands slipped up her neck and lingered on her jaw.